


of course i'll dance with you

by paintedpolarbear



Series: prompt fics [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-31 14:11:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13976787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedpolarbear/pseuds/paintedpolarbear
Summary: ♦:  slow dancing





	of course i'll dance with you

Uncomfortable heat and the clatter of too many voices swirl out the door as it opens, light from inside the conference hall spilling out onto the empty veranda in stark blocks of gold and almost-black on the cement. Adam doesn’t look up, only shifts his weight from one foot to the other; there’s enough glass in the French double doors that the difference between open and closed is minimal. He’s supposed to be schmoozing since Gansey had hinted at networking opportunities, despite that it’s just the graduation reception for this year’s crop of Aglionby seniors, but Adam just wishes he hadn’t left his jacket in the coat closet when he’d arrived. It’s either unusually cold for mid-May or he’s just having that much trouble getting warm.

“I thought I’d find you out here.”

Adam turns his head to see Ronan making his lazy way across the patio, thumbs in his pockets, cutting an impressive figure in the well-fitted charcoal-gray number Matthew had gently bullied him into wearing. He looks good in it–very good, in fact, and Adam has to turn back around to surreptitiously loosen his tie so that his suddenly-pounding heart doesn’t pop a button. Of course, Ronan doesn’t notice, just installs himself at the railing, close enough to bump shoulders and wall off a little of the night breeze.

Adam sighs and leans the side of his head against Ronan’s warm shoulder. “I needed some air. All that networking with fifteen-year-olds and their parents was giving me a migraine.”

Ronan barks a laugh, slips his arm around Adam’s waist and presses in close, burying his face in the cool skin of Adam’s neck and breathing deeply. Even though he can’t see it, he can imagine the face Ronan is pulling, that marriage of tolerant grimace and fond smile that he loves. “They love you,” Ronan says. “Best-looking salutatorian in Aglionby history. How many job offers did you get?”

Adam laughs and leans closer. “None. I got about six board members asking for yearly donations, though. I told them nobody’s getting anything until they take my shitty picture out of the brochure.”

“Serious?” Ronan huffs into Adam’s shirt collar, his smile poking through the fabric. “I would have paid good money to see the look on Pauls’ face.”

Andre Pauls, the decrepit and bad-tempered head of the Giving Society, would have very quietly had an aneurysm at the mildest of curses, so it’s with a wistful tone of regret that Adam says, “Well, I didn’t say ‘shitty’.”

“That’s real funny, Parrish. I didn’t think you were a wuss.”

The door glides open again and the dwindling chatter inside washes over them–it’s gotten late enough that most everyone has left in pursuit of sleep or a wilder party. Footsteps. A muttered _oh, excuse me_. The footsteps retreat; the door remains open. Grumbling, Ronan shucks his suit jacket and tosses it over one of the rusted wrought-iron lawn chairs, yanking at the knot of his tie.

How unfair, how that does nothing to ease the constriction in Adam’s chest.

“C’mere,” he says, tugging at Adam’s sleeve and pulling him close. He laces their fingers and buries his face in the crook of Adam’s neck, next to his right ear. Someone inside finds an acoustic guitar and starts plucking a skillful, if tone-deaf, rendition of [some John Mayer song](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D7K2DQ8XBRbU&t=YjQ3NzdkYzcwOTQ0NDI2NDU5NWZlNTc3YzRmYThiNTJkMmNkYzNjOSxiYUpFaTFKZg%3D%3D&b=t%3A0vtd1x2LeQWRzVIkXDxt6A&p=https%3A%2F%2Fpnrrish.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F171076895949%2Fpynch-3c&m=0) that Ronan groans at. But he sways to the music all the same.

_I don’t think I wanna go to L.A. anymore; I won’t know what it’s like to land and not race to your door…._

“I hate this song.” Adam smiles, leans more fully into Ronan’s warmth–he’s not listening to the music at all, just relishing the chance to be close. A chance he regretfully hasn’t had since Christmas—spring break had been a hectic maelstrom of internship interviews and service projects and twenty-page papers that left a total of zero time to go home—

(when had he started thinking of the Barns as home?)

—and so this light touch is more than enough for the moment, cheek to cheek, his fingers linked behind Ronan’s neck, Ronan’s hands settled on Adam’s hips, gently shifting weight from one foot to the other, not quite on the beat.

_I’m gonna steer clear: I’d burn up in your atmosphere_.

“Think you’re gonna be around much this summer?”

_I’m gonna steer clear, ‘cause I’d die if I saw you, die if I didn’t see you there…so I don’t think I’m gonna go to L.A. anymore_.

Adam really should have seen this question for what it was, but instead he answers without thinking. “Oh, I hope so. It’ll be tricky with the internship but I’ve got a couple weeks between that and my summer classes—”

His first hint that this conversation isn’t going the way he’d expected is Ronan’s wary interjection: “Summer classes?” This isn’t the first time they’ve talked about this. This isn’t even the first time Ronan’s given even the slightest hint that he might not be thrilled about the idea. Adam presses on, ignoring the sudden churning in his gut because if he can just explain one more time—

(The guitar stumbles drunkenly over a chord progression and skips a verse: _Wherever I go, wherever you are, I’ll watch your life play out in pictures from afar…._ )

“Yeah,” he says, unable to keep a hint of annoyance from creeping into his voice. “The two summer classes that’ll take me a month and a half to finish. Seriously, Lynch, it’s like you haven’t heard a word I’ve said all year—”

“I heard the part where I get two weeks with you from now until Christmas—”

“You know Thanksgiving is a thing, right?”

“That’s two days, and I honestly don’t know why you’d bother when it would be so much cheaper to stay up in Philadelphia.”

“Because I want to? Because I miss you and I want to spend time with you?”

The second hint that this conversation isn’t going the way Adam expected is the barb laced in Ronan’s response: 

“Why?” 

The kid with the guitar has stopped playing and the conference hall is dark—and honestly, that’s probably for the best. With the party well and truly over, the only people privy to the argument are Adam and Ronan themselves.

“The hell do you mean, ‘why’?” Adam’s long crossed the line from bewildered and annoyed to pissed, not just at Ronan’s instant, overboiling hostility, but at all of this in general. The way Ronan gets moody and snappish the day before he has to leave. The way he answers every question with either deflection or unwarranted venom. The way he walks around like an explosive on a timer that’s steadily ticking down to an unknown deadline.

Like he thinks there’ll come a day when Adam decides there’s nothing in Henrietta worth coming back for.

Like he thinks it’s so inevitable that he might as well blow it all up now and save them both from wasting any more time.

When Ronan doesn’t answer, Adam keeps talking, his voice shaking and his hands numb with anger. It’s all he can do to scramble for the right words; if they’ve had this argument once, they’ve had it a hundred thousand times, and he keeps hoping he can find the magic combination that will make him finally understand.

“You really think I’d rather be in Pennsylvania right now? Where it starts snowing in September and traffic is always the shittiest and the only person I can have a normal conversation with is my eighty-year-old history professor?” His breath is growing shorter and shorter by the word, his fingers tremblingly clutched in Ronan’s shirt collar, his heart thudding painfully. Somewhere under his ribcage, an ache like roots is spreading, oily and deep. “If I keep doing summer classes, I–there’s a good chance of me graduating early. I’m not just thinking about tomorrow and next week. I’m thinking about in three years getting to come back and _stay_ instead of doing this for one more year. I don’t want to stay up there. I want to come back _home_.” His throat catches on the last word, tripping over the _h_ like a scratched disc, and he feels the burn of tears beginning to fall.

Ronan’s blinking owlishly, face full of understanding, silent only for a few moments.

“Oh, Adam,” he says softly. “Don’t cry. I’m not going anywhere.”

He can’t help it—his breath goes shuddery and deep and dry, groping dumbly for the air he’d almost been afraid he’d lose. Ronan’s hands are warm and soothing on his neck, thumbs swiping at cheekbones, forehead against forehead.

“You’re incredible,” Ronan murmurs. “Sometimes it’s hard to even look at you ‘cause I know you’re gonna do something amazing. And all I can think is, wow, I sure hope I get to watch it happen somehow. I wanna see where you go ‘cause it’s going to be fucking mind blowing.”

Adam is reminded, briefly, strangely, of the dreamlike summer before Penn: wandering the Barns for hours at a time, only working when he wanted, eating his fill, and Ronan a ghost in his own house for weeks, too insecure to start a real fight but too stubborn to try to talk it out. It had turned out to be nothing, but Ronan had made a similar confession the night before Adam left.

_“You sure you don’t want to stay up on campus for Thanksgiving? That’s a lot of driving to only be down here for two days.”_

_“That’s stupid,” Adam said, rolling over to pull the blanket out from where it had fallen between the bed and the wall. “When would I see you?”_

_Ronan heaved a sigh. “I just figured you’d rather do anything except come back to Podunk Central.” His voice twinged, like it cost him a lot to admit. Adam went still, his arms still half tangled in the threadbare quilt._

_“I’m coming back to you, dummy,” Adam said. He leaned across the pillow to pepper kisses along the expanse of Ronan’s mouth and cheek. “And I can’t wait.”_

_Finally, Ronan smiled._

“And what the hell,” Adam says now, “am I gonna do when I get there and you’re not with me?”

“Die, I guess,” Ronan says instantly, easily. “Since you always forget to eat.”

“ _Dickhead_.”

Laughter shakes the azaleas in the blue shadows outside the veranda. Where the ache was, curling and twisting in his ribcage, now there’s only feather-lightness.

“Come on,” Adam whispers, sliding his hands into the back pockets of Ronan’s slacks and relishing the warmth. “I thought we were dancing.”

Ronan doesn’t answer, just smiles as he leans down to press their lips together. He hums tunelessly, and they spin lazily around the porch with the light off and the door open, and the cold night air stills at last.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks @frostedfox on tumblr for the prompt


End file.
